IT WAS ALMOST ten when I awoke the following morning. My AC had conked out. It was eighty-eight degrees in the house and I was soaked in sweat. I had a headache and was dizzy from the booze. Mimi, that mischievous and lucky cat, was lying on the pillow next to my bed. Good morning to you.
I shuffled to the bathroom, drank water, washed my face. Last night was a fog. I retraced my steps. I had been in Caragiulos, gotten drunk, and left my car parked on Palm Avenue. I had seen Holly. Or was that an illusion, a dream? She kept calling me babe. And she kissed me.
Maya Zavala. Right. I was right on her trail. Today I had to find Boseman. I searched around my messy house. My laptop was gone.
The restaurant. I’d also left an envelope with ten grand under the seat of my car.
Fuck. Me.
I didn’t shower. I just fed Mimi a handful of dry food and ran back to Caragiulos. My car was still there, intact—a twenty-five-dollar parking ticket on the windshield. Caragiulos was just opening for lunch. I asked the manager about my bag, a small leather case with a laptop. He seemed skeptical. He went back to ask the kitchen staff. I had everything in there. All the information, the stupid stories I was working on for the magazine, my leads for finding Maya, the info on Boseman.
After about twenty minutes the manager came back. He had the bag. Yes. He had the bag. He handed it over with a smile that seemed to say: you lucky bastard. It was all in there, computer, notebooks, pens, gum.
Before driving out to Boseman’s place on Siesta Key, I drove by the bank and deposited half of the ten grand into my checking account. Then I went home and stashed the other five in the pages of Diana Kennedy’s Recipes from the Regional Cooks of Mexico. The house was so hot, it stank of old wood and that unique sour smell of termite shit. I called the AC repairman. They said the earliest they could send someone was at the end of the day.
* * *
Siesta Key is the little island that made me fall in love with Sarasota back in ’95 when I came down with a couple of buddies from the University of Houston for spring break. I knew I would come back. But in my overactive imagination I always thought I’d own a place on the beach. It didn’t seem so far-fetched back then. Real estate seemed affordable, and I had the crazy illusion that I’d become a well-paid, hotshot journalist. So much for that pipe dream.
I had gotten Boseman’s address from the County Assessors website. It was a large house by Point of Rocks at the very south end of the public beach, the one I never went to anymore because trekking out there, finding parking, and dealing with the crowds took all the fun out of it. I liked nature, quiet. Siesta Beach lost that long ago.
I drove past the village and the beach and turned into Point of Rocks Road and found the house. It was pretty much like all the other houses on the Gulf, but it wasn’t as obnoxious as I had imagined it would be. It was an older two-story place with a lot of wood and character. It was the kind of place I could live in if I were rich. I knocked on the door but got no answer. I stepped back and looked at the small windows. Nothing. No movement, no lights. A late-model silver Jaguar XJ was parked in front of the garage. I walked back to the front door and knocked again.
I went back to my car. It was early afternoon. Maybe he had a job or had gone out to lunch, which wasn’t such a bad idea. I drove to Anna’s Deli a few blocks away and devoured a Pastrami Ruben with extra sauerkraut and Tabasco. It cured my hangover like a magic potion.
About an hour later I went back to Boseman’s place. The Jaguar was still there. I knocked, got nothing. I walked to the side and down to the beach access path. Then I made my way toward his house from the beach side. The erosion had washed out most of the sand so anyone walking the beach had to walk across the backyards of the houses.
I climbed past the private property sign. The rear of the house was all windows. I imagined every room had a view of the ocean. The patio was all stone around a small kidney-shaped pool. A hammock hung between two palm trees. On a table by the pool there was a pair of women’s sunglasses, red and big like butterfly wings. I picked them up. Vintage Dior from the ’50s. There were two empty glasses, one with lipstick marks, a tube of Hawaiian Tropic, and a Victoria’s Secret catalogue.
I made my way around the pool to the sliding glass door and knocked. I started to think maybe Mike Boseman had absconded with Maya Zavala. Maybe they’d eloped. Maybe Nick really had nothing to worry about. I understood that he wanted to know his daughter was all right, but really, if she chose to take a six-month trip to Luxembourg with Boseman or some other hack, that was her choice. She didn’t have to notify him or anyone else if she didn’t want to.
When I turned to go, someone yelled, “Hey, get the fuck off my property!”
I put my hand over my brow to shield my eyes from the sun and get a better look. It was him. Mike Boseman in the flesh. I recognized him right away from the photos I’d seen on the computer and from the newspaper article where he was posing with his production manager—a tall sexy blond—and a fancy Bell helicopter parked in front of the new sound studio warehouse of his now defunct Sarasota film production company.
He was leaning out a window on the second floor, shirtless, his shoulder-length hair a mess. He looked like a surfer—a wealthy beach bum.
“I got a sign posted, asshole. You blind?”
“Yeah, I saw it.” I took a couple of steps back so I didn’t have to crane my neck so steep. “But no one was answering the front door. I’d like to have a word with you, Mr. Boseman.”
It took him a moment, like he was surprised that I called him by his last name. He stared at me, probably sizing me up. “What’s this about?”
“If you don’t mind, I’d rather not be yelling it out for all your neighbors to hear.”
Again he just stared. He didn’t look pleased. He glanced back into the room and then back at me.
“I’m not selling anything and I’m not with the government,” I said.
“You with the paper?”
“Not anymore.”
“Do I know you?”
“My name’s Dexter Vega. I want to talk to you about a mutual friend.”
“Oh, yeah?”
I spread my arms. It was hot. The sun was burning overhead. I needed a drink. “Five minutes.”
Again, he took a moment. He looked back inside. Maybe there was someone there with him. Then he closed the window. A minute later he opened the sliding glass door and walked out on the patio to meet me. He was wearing khaki cargo shorts and nothing else. His skin was red and brown and slightly peeling on his nose and shoulders from the sun. He must have been spending a lot of time out on the beach.
He crossed his arms over his bare chest. “Five minutes.”
“I’m trying to find Maya Zavala.”
There was a subtle twinge in his blue eyes. “What makes you think I know where she is?” he asked.
“You’re her boyfriend. She lived with you. I figured you might know something.”
He leaned back and raised his head. He was tall, strong. He looked to be my age, but fit. I could tell he was sharp. I suppose you had to be to bamboozle the county out of three million bucks and stay out of jail all in a single bound.
“Where did you hear that?” he said.
He was asking a lot of questions, a clear sign of guilt. I was on to something with him, but I needed to coax it out of him. Gently. “We’ve got mutual friends. They’re worried about her.”
“What mutual friends? Give me some names.”
I took a shot in the dark: “John and Mary.”
“You mean Joey and May.”
“No,” I said. “John and Mary, from New College.”
He squinted. “What’s your game, man?”
“I told you. I’m looking for Maya. It’s like she suddenly dropped off the face of the earth. Her friends are worried.”
“Maya doesn’t have any friends.”
So he did know her. “Where is she?”
For the first time he smiled. “What makes you think I know?”
“I’m not a cop, and I’m not planning on going to the cops. But I could. I could also go to the paper. Can you see it? Pretty co-ed disappears, former Sarasota-Hollywood exec is prime suspect.”
“Why do you want her?” he asked.
I was getting warm. He sounded worried, or maybe not. I changed my tone, gentle but firm. “Her biology professor at New College came to me. We’re old friends. He told me he was worried about her, asked me to look into it. That’s it.”
“Dr. Tabor?”
I nodded. “We just want to know she’s okay.”
“She’s fine.”
“Where is she?”
“I thought Dr. Tabor knew she was going.”
“He did,” I said. “But he lost touch. He hasn’t heard from her in a while.”
“Maybe he’s getting old. The whole fieldwork idea was his suggestion.”
“Fieldwork?”
“To count those damn Mexican salamanders. The axo-whatever the fuck they’re called.”
I nodded. “So she’s in Mexico.”
“Yeah, it’s all over her Facebook page.”
I stepped back. “I don’t do Facebook.”
“Dr. Tabor does. He knows everything about the trip. He set the whole thing up.”
“Shit. Maybe he is getting old.”
He shook his head. “I’m telling you. He knows more about what she’s up to than I do.”
“Damn that Dr. Tabor. He made me come down here for nothing.”
Boseman laughed. “Hey, I’m sorry about earlier. I get all kinds of assholes walking across my property to get to the other side of the beach.”
“No sweat. I’d get pissed if I had someone hanging out in my backyard.”
* * *
I left Siesta Key and headed north toward New College. Dr. Tabor. That was the lead. I’d thought about going to him earlier, but I didn’t imagine a college professor would know much about the personal life of one of his students.
On the way I called Holly and left her a voice mail about getting together. I’d invited her to Michael’s on East, a nice fancy restaurant—old school and classy. I reextended the invitation, suggested tonight or tomorrow. Whatever worked best for her. Last night was still sketchy in my brain. I was dying to find out if what I remembered really happened the way I thought it did. I didn’t want to get my hopes up for nothing. With Holly you never knew. And with Holly, I was playing with fire. I didn’t want to get burned again.
* * *
I’ve never been one to face authority straight on. As a matter of fact, I had a serious disdain for people in positions of power, people who needed to have control and buried themselves in their own bureaucracy. Still, when I arrived at New College, I went straight to the administration building and asked for Dr. Tabor.
Big mistake. Right away they needed to see my ID. They unloaded a barrage of questions: Who was I, why did I want to see him, did I have an appointment, could I fill out this form?
After about twenty minutes of bullshit, I just walked out. I drove across the campus and pulled over by a group of students and asked them where I might find Tabor. They pointed me to the biology labs.
Tabor was in his office. He was a short man with wire-rim glasses and a twitch in his left eye. He was in his late fifties, overweight, and pink in the face from either too much booze or too much sun. His office was tiny, like a large cubicle. And extremely well organized. It kind of made him look larger than he was. On the back wall he had a few framed diplomas and awards—a shrine to his academic ego.
“Of course, I know Maya,” he said when I asked about her. “But I can’t discuss a student unless you’re a family member, or unless Maya has cleared you to receive information about her academic standing—”
“I’m not here for anything like that. I just want to know where she is.”
“What makes you think I know?” He sat up, straightened his back, and squinted, his left eyelid trembling.
“Apparently she’s gone to Mexico to study a salamander or something,” I said. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But her family has lost contact with her and they’re worried sick.”
“And you’re family?”
“Kind of,” I said. “I’m a good friend. They asked me to look into her whereabouts. They’re afraid maybe she was kidnapped. Mexico’s not the safest place to hang out.”
“Well.” He sounded flustered. “They need to contact the administration. You can’t just come in here asking—”
I leaned over his desk. “Look, Doc. Take it easy. We don’t have to make a big deal about this, okay? I just want to find out where she is.”
He pushed his glasses up on his nose. Then he reached for his computer mouse and made a few clicks.
I leaned against the wall and crossed my arms. “I’m not trying to be threatening, but you were the one who encouraged her to go to Mexico. If anything happened to her …”
He raised his eyes at me. “Who told you that?”
“Everyone knows. It’s on the record.”
“Are you with the police?”
“If you are, you need to identify yourself as a law enforcement officer. There are protocols.”
I leaned forward, placed my hands on his desk, looked him in the eyes. “Spill it, Tabor.”
“What are you talking about? I have nothing to hide.” He stood and hung his hands on the sides of his waist. “I suggest you leave. I’ll call security.”
“No problem,” I said and dropped down on the only other chair in the room. “Call whoever you want. I can’t wait to let them know what happened to Maya and how you incited her to travel alone to a place that the U.S. Department of State has issued warnings about. You put her in danger.”
He stared at me, then past me, past the door at the hallway. “What’s your problem?”
“I told you. I want to know where she is. I want an address.”
“But I don’t know—”
“Facebook, Doctor. Log in and get me her info. Now.”
He shuddered and sat back down. The keys on his computer began to sing. In a moment he started reciting her info. “She’s in Mexico City, but there’s no address, just Colonia Roma and that she’s working with a team from the university in Xochimilco.”
I came around the desk and glanced at the Facebook page on the screen. Her profile picture was a funny-looking salamander with little arms and beady purple eyes. Her last post was two weeks ago. She’d been searching for the little critter near the Island of Dolls.
“Has she sent you any e-mails?”
He shook his head. “She sent me a couple of e-mails when she first arrived to let me know she had arranged for a tour of Xochimilco with the Biology department from the university—”
“What university?”
“UNAM, National Autonomous University of Mexico.”
“Did she mention any friends, colleagues, roommates?”
Tabor pushed his chair back and moved away from the computer, gave me a sly smile. “Maya Zavala has no friends.”
I couldn’t imagine a pretty, elegant young woman like Maya not having friends, an entourage, even. “Four years in college and not a single friend?”
Tabor shrugged. “You know Maya.”
“Not really,” I said. “Tell me.”
“She’s quiet. And very ambitious. She works harder than any student who’s ever come through my department.”
“Still,” I said. “She could have had a friend. At least a lab partner or something.”
“Not Maya.” He gave me a sly smile. “Perhaps it’s a character flaw.”
Her boyfriend was rich. Her father was a millionaire. I suppose she could be abrasive. Maybe she was an asshole. You can’t tell someone’s personality from a photograph. “Tell me about these critters, the salamanders.”
“I didn’t put her up to it. I just mentioned the—”
“There’s no need to get defensive, Doc. Just tell me about them. That’s why she went, right?”
He took a deep breath. “The axolotl is a fascinating animal. They’re amphibious but never grow lungs. And they can regenerate limbs. But they’ve disappeared from the wild. Maya knew about them. We study them in class. Well, not real axolotl, but we look at various animals with peculiar anomalies and how their mutations and genes are affected by environment. Like sharks. We look at how their—”
“You’re getting on a tangent.”
He stopped and fixed his glasses. “Right. Well, I mentioned, perhaps in passing, how … if someone found an axolotl in the wild it would be quite an achievement. Something like that could make someone’s career.”
“You didn’t think she would jump on the next plane to Mexico.”
“Of course not. It’s not as if I told her a big secret. I was addressing the class. We were talking about research they might take on, projects that could help them get into graduate school or find publication for their papers in academic journals. One of my students made a smart comment about how all the great subjects had been tackled. I was only trying to make a point.”
“Right. And so if Maya or anyone else found one of these critters, they’d get published. Instant fame.”
“It’s a big deal. These animals are endemic to Mexico City. The valley where the city is built was a series of lakes during the time of the Aztecs. The axolotl hasn’t changed in thousands of years. They’re fascinating—”
“Except they don’t really exist anymore.”
He shook his head. “Not in the wild.”
I left it at that. I was beginning to get a pretty good picture of Maya Zavala. What I didn’t get was why she wasn’t communicating with Boseman or her father or Dr. Tabor. Ambitious or not, you’d think she’d at least send a postcard, let someone know she was okay.
And then there was her Facebook page. She might not have friends in Sarasota, but she had over two hundred friends on Facebook. But that didn’t mean much. They could have been colleagues, contacts. Who knew?
I wanted to swing by Nick’s place on my way home and give him the news, but I was running late to meet the AC repairman at my house. I sure as hell wasn’t going to spend another night in that sweat lodge. And then there was Holly. She hadn’t called back. It had my gut in a knot. If I had another chance to fix things with her, I was going to go all out. What I needed now was a drink for courage.